Living in this Day

100 Days stretch out long before me. This is my second attempt. The first abandoned before I could count three.

Bad habits are so hard to break. Good habits equally as difficult to make.

I pray, give myself some grace, and start again. This time pondering what I can give before making the list.

~Bible reading at a slower, more comfortable pace. The rhythm of reading and re-reading a passage for days on end, reveling in the words and their deeper meaning. Finding new treasures each day. Smiling to myself at the realization that the words are becoming familiar friends, staying with me long after I've left the quiet darkness of the morning behind.

~Taking care of myself so that I am not a tired, out-of-sorts wife and mama. Making the effort to have as much energy as possible to meet their needs.

~Daring to love as Christ does, in this season now more than ever.

Can I do this? Even just three things, for 100 days, seems unlikely, if not impossible. And so I don't look there. I don't even look at the next page.  I look only at today and think about how delighted I will be to place check marks in three boxes as the day draws to an end.  Then I will rest long and peacefully before starting again tomorrow.

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. ~Matthew 6:34 (ESV)

Join others at Ann's to find encouragement in the practice of making a habit.

Living in the Word

January comes, stark white. My front yard still not emerging from the foot of snow that blanketed the last week of December. The calendar pages are pristine, beautiful in their emptiness. Days yet to be counted set before me, a fresh start. The Year of Giving has arrived, full of promise.

As I learned yesterday, giving must take place inside my home before it can take place out in the wide world. Eve is only set before us as a wife and a mother - those roles, her most important. The ones we should cling to as most important. In the perfection of Eden, she had no other obligations.  This world is not the Garden and I find myself stretched thin as tissue paper, afraid I'll tear into shreds at any minute.

How will I be able to give then?

This fresh year sparks a desire for a fresh start. The opportunity to begin good habits.

In this Year of Giving, I will give myself the Word of God in a new way, savoring each precious morsel rather than consuming without thought.

Instead of being intimidated by the thought of having to read the Bible through in a year (and the dread, failure and guilt which inevitably ensued), I am spending the year in the Word using this plan (an answer to prayer!). Soaking in the Word, meditating on it, and hopefully living in it.

I am also memorizing fighter verses to hide the Word in my heart, fight the good battle, and fend off the enemy. (Thank you, John Piper & Bethlehem Baptist Church).
  
I'm giving myself the habit of spending valuable time in the only Words that matter. It's the best give I'll ever receive.

A Prayer for a Tuesday

The lyrics wash over me, seeping into my skin and penetrating my bones. They become my prayer when I'm on my way to work, ashamed at how I raised my voice this morning in frustration and how I didn't even thank my husband who stepped in for me when my head was throbbing so hard I couldn't see straight.

Don't want to leave them hungry for love,
Chasing things that I could give up

I'll show them I'm willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this our home
Lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone.

I ponder the length of the list of things I chase, things with no value or significance. What pursuits of mine leaving my family hungry for love? Am I so easily lured by the meaningless because I fear the meaningful?

I consider the best of my life. Have I found it yet? Would I know it if I saw it? Would they?

My family deserves more than the half-hearted attempts, the leftovers of my life. This man and girl I've been entrusted to love, they should have a wife and mama who is in fighting shape and who is ready to battle any force that threatens our home. Lord, lead me. I can't do this alone.

I read the many words impressed on others' hearts this year. Glorious themes that I wish He had burned on my own soul. Words like imperfect and depend, love and here. I covet those words, those journeys. I long to set my feet on those paths. Yet I am called to give. Not just outside my home, but first and foremost in it.

To give love...hugs and cuddles, words that build.

To give understanding...when he is crushed under the weight of school and she is held captive by pre-teen hormones.

To give help...when forms need completing, books need ordering, and papers need typing.

To give time...at the dinner table, at the homework table, and at the game table.

To give of myself instead of taking for myself.

The Year of Giving will be a challenge and I'm not sure I'm up to the task. I'm forever grateful that I know the One Who is.



(*lyrics from "Lead Me", by Sanctus Real)

January - Giving to Neglected Children

The Christmas decorations will soon be dismantled, but the Spirit of Christmas will live on in our home. The Year of Giving is about to commence, our first project already chosen.

Rather than tossing Christmas cards out with the wrapping paper, we are giving them new life at the St. Jude's Ranch. There, in the hands of neglected, abused, and abandoned children, they will be transformed.

Such a simple thing, to collect something that would normally be thrown away and pass it along. For the cost of postage, we can send the Spirit of Christmas across the country. We'll continue to gather cards throughout the year. We're enlisting family and friends to help.

An envelope filled with discarded greeting cards can help change a life.

Visit the Ranch to find out more.

Will you join us in A Year of Giving? Pray that the Lord will open your eyes to new opportunities to give and share the love of Christ with others. In God's kingdom, the heart of the giver matters more than the size of the gift.

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, "Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on." - Luke 21:1-4 (ESV)

2011 - A Year of Giving

It is our shame & disgrace today that so many Christians...go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord's parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet them) averting their eyes, and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor it is the spirit of those Christians - alas, they are many - whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.

~J.I. Packer
excerpted from Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas

The words slice my heart deep and I catch my breath. I wriggle in my seat, squirm at the conviction. Seeing yourself in words is uncomfortable sometimes.

The pain of realization is fresh. I know what I must do. No excuses, no rationalizations.

I'm setting aside the theme I had planned for next year.  A new one calls urgently, unrelentingly.

2011 will be A Year of Giving.

Each month, my family will consciously seek to share Jesus in practical, life-changing ways. We will look for opportunities to give of our time, money, and talents.

Even though our income has been drastically reduced.

Even though our spare time is in short supply.

Even though we don't overflow with talent.

The goal is at least one project a month, but I am praying that we will be stretched to give more, to love more. That we can help change lives but, more importantly, that our lives will be changed. That we will be more aware of our blessings. That we will come to this time next year with a deep appreciation for what we have been given, and a burning desire to continue giving to others. That giving will become second nature, a way of living.

This theme is different from the others. It's shifting our perspective from what we can gain to what we can give.

Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

- Luke 12:48 (ESV)

Will you join us in A Year of Giving? Pray that the Lord will open your eyes to new opportunities to give and share the love of Christ with others.  In God's kingdom, the heart of the giver matters more than the size of the gift.

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, "Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."

- Luke 21:1-4 (ESV)